Status

Summary

This enactment amends the Aeronautics Act to provide that the Governor in Council may make regulations respecting the location of aerodromes only with the approval of the provincial authority.

It also provides that the Governor in Council may make regulations preventing lands adjacent to or in the vicinity of an airport or an airport site from being used or developed only if the relevant minister has been unable to reach an agreement with the government of the province in which the lands are located.

Mr. Speaker, 40 years ago, on March 27, 1969, Jean Marchand, a minister in Pierre Elliott Trudeau's government, officially announced the expropriation of a parcel of land as big as the island of Laval to build an international airport.

Ottawa kicked out 3,000 families. We are talking about an area of 39,255 hectares to build the Mirabel airport on the most productive arable lands in Quebec. What became of this airport? It has been stripped of all commercial flights and passengers, who were ironically transferred to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau airport. Since then, the people of Ahuntsic have been forced to endure aircraft noise.

Another era, another city. Neuville is a community of men, women and children who have created an excellent quality of life for themselves over the years. They have also had rules to protect their land. Developers created a company for the purpose of building a private airport on land in Neuville. They had to comply only with federal regulations and were then able to get around the fact that the land they had chosen was protected agricultural land. They also disregarded municipal zoning and the regional county municipality's land use rules.

Can a population be stripped of the right to control its own land? No. I am introducing this bill, which would amend the Aeronautics Act, so that the Governor in Council may make regulations respecting the location of airports only with the approval of a province.